'If Ailes ever truly went to war against Trump, Trump would have the arsenal to launch a retaliatory strike,' Sherman writes

Continue after the cut ...

In 2014, Sherman published an embarrassing biography of Ailes which led the founder of Fox News to fire his PR adviser Brian Lewis
'During severance negotiations, Lewis hired powerhouse litigator Judd Burstein and said he had 'bombs' that could bring down Fox
Trump says Ailes asked him to mediate the situation, since he once worked with Burstein
Fox ended up paying Lewis million to keep quiet, but Trump reportedly learned everything he planned to leak

That could explain why Ailes and Fox haven't come out harder against Trump, even as he continues to publicly attack star anchor Megyn Kelly

Fox News network's CEO Roger Ailes

A new report in New York magazine is shedding light on Donald Trump's baffling drama with Fox News.

Reporter Gabriel Sherman purports that Trump has insider information on the news network that has kept CEO and GOP power-broker Roger Ailes from declaring outright war against the mogul.

In 2014, Sherman wrote a biography on Ailes titled The Loudest Voice in the Room, a book so damaging it led Ailes to fire his PR adviser Brian Lewis, certain Lewis had been an anonymous source for the book.

When he was fired, Lewis went on a rampage, threatening to drop 'bombs' that would destroy both Ailes and Fox News.

It was when Lewis hired powerhouse litigator Judd Burstein to represent him in severance negotiations with Fox News that Trump says he got involved, since he previously worked with Burstein.

'When Roger was having problems, he didn’t call 97 people, he called me,' Trump told the magazine. 'Roger [Ailes] had lawyers, very expensive lawyers, and they couldn’t do anything. I solved the problem.'

Dirt: When Ailes fired his PR adviser over the 2014 biography The Loudest Voice in the Room, Trump helped mediate and apparently learned everything Brian Lewis was planning to expose about Fox News

So Trump ran the meetings out of his offices in Trump Tower, and in the end Fox paid millions to keep Lewis quiet.

But all of the dirt on Fox News that Lewis planned to expose, Trump learned, Sherman reports.

'Trump, I’m told, learned everything Lewis had planned to leak. If Ailes ever truly went to war against Trump, Trump would have the arsenal to launch a retaliatory strike,' Sherman writes.

That might explain why Fox News was strangely restrained when Trump first attacked Megyn Kelly after the first GOP debates in August.

After the debates, Trump felt he had been bullied by Kelly, who confronted him with his history of making derogatory statements about women.

Fox also failed to penalize Trump during another debate in March, when he violated the debate rules by talking to his campaign manager during a commercial break.

Quiet: If Trump does indeed have embarrassing information on Fox News, it could explain why the network has been measured in their defense of Megyn Kelly, who Trump continues to attack for asking him tough questions at the first GOP debate